WIPRO Consulting Services in 2006

Abstract

In the autumn of 2006, when the leadership team of India’s second largest provider of IT products, services and consulting Wipro Technologies Ltd, gathered to consider the future of its burgeoning consulting business. What started as a strategic initiative 5 years ago in the backdrop of 2001 IT slowdown, had now matured into a thriving business. But to become a business leader in technology consulting, Wipro needed to go further. It needed a strategic focus that can only come with a dedicated organization, and a structure that would give it the scale and kind of push required to fully take advantage of the opportunities this sector had to offer.

Wipro’s strategic reorientation of its consulting business was also essential if it was to counter moves by its main rivals, Tata Consultancy Service (TCS), and Infosys. Infosys was busy establishing Infosys Consulting Services as a stand along business, and TCS had integrated its consulting initiative within the firm’s vertical structure and looked towards consulting as key strategic initiative in becoming engaged in transformation projects and establishing itself as an end-to-end technology enabled services provider. Wipro, however, was having difficulties taking its consulting business to the next level. Fragmented organizational structure prevented the management to accurately assessing both scale as well as the real worth of its consulting capabilities. It was not clear how the company should align consulting capabilities with industry verticals and global business accounts. On top of this, Wipro’s leadership was also concerned about internal friction. The high profit margin in consulting was leading several Wipro units to develop consulting services alongside their other business lines. This improved business unit bottom-line directly, and Wipro’s revenues indirectly, but it also gave momentum to unhealthy internal competition.

How far could the leadership have allowed these fragmented business units to live in their own silos was necessary to be addressed urgently. It was important for the leadership to tackle the issue of cross coupling among the organizational units along with their own cohesion for a better management oversight and sense of direction. Wipro’s leadership had their plates overflowing in that meeting and everyone knew that the time was running out and they needed to act and act fast!!